The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, edited by R.H.
Charles (1913 edition), is a collection of Jewish religious writings, mainly
from the centuries leading up to the New Testament events. They are
arguably the most important non-biblical documents for the historical and
cultural background studies of popular religion in New Testament times.
The early church writers made use of these documents, and the New Testament
even quotes or alludes to a few of them. The Epistle of Jude, for example,
contains allusions to the Assumption of Moses (Jude 9) and the 1st Book of
Enoch (Jude 14-16).

Exegetes have long stressed the importance of genre study, the study of
documents that share similar literary characteristics to the work being
analyzed, in the work of the interpreter of scripture. Grant Osborne, in his
work, The Hermeneutical Spiral states, "We must determine the genre or type
of literature before interpretation can begin. The pastor will preach
apocalyptic quite differently than poetry or narrative. ...we must study and
proclaim each biblical genre differently, according to its own purposes and
rules, lest we proclaim a message alien to the divine intention in the text"
(p. 354).

The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are key documents for genre study;
interpreters and commentators of Revelation and Daniel, for example, make
much use of the apocalypses in this collection: 1 and 2 Enoch, The Testament
of the 12 Patriarchs, 2 and 3 Baruch, 4 Ezra, The Sibylline Oracles, etc.

A simple search for references to the Books of Enoch, for example, returns
over 1,100 hits in the Word Biblical Commentary, and over 440 hits in
Anchor Bible Dictionary. That's over 1,500 references in just two
sets of books - just for Enoch! In Libronix format, the Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha has a standard reference scheme encoded, much like a Bible
reference. This allows us to start turning references to these important,
oft-cited books, into live hyperlinks to the translations themselves.

Additional Details

R.H. Charles' edition of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old
Testament is divided into two print volumes. The first volume contains those
books which are still considered part of scripture by the Roman Catholic
Church or the Greek Orthodox Church. The second volume contains works like
the apocalypses mentioned above that were in popular use, but never
canonized as scripture by any mainstream Christian church. In addition to
apocalypses, there are histories, books of wisdom literature (in the same
genre as Proverbs), psalms, and additions to canonical works.

Each apocryphal and pseudepigraphal text has an extensive introduction
covering dates, manuscript variants, and helpful topics such as "Influence
on New Testament Doctrine." In fact, these thorough introductions (some
running 48 pages and more) are one of the reasons Charles' work is so widely
used today.

Each text is presented in English translation, and is accompanied by copious
notes and (in many cases) a critical apparatus listing alternate readings in
the various ancient language manuscripts that have survived till today—citing
Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Latin, Armenian and more.

Some of Charles' editions have been made available online or in other
software packages, but none that we know of contain the complete set of
notes, introductions and critical apparatuses that make this set the
indispensable study tool that it is.

About the Logos Bible
Software Edition

The Logos edition contains some exciting enhancements to make this work
even more accessible and useful. Charles's in-depth commentary/notes (appearing
in the print edition as footnotes—see page scan below) are broken out into a
separate "commentary" volume in the electronic edition. This makes it easy
to open the text and commentary side-by-side so they scroll together as you
read through the Charles text (or any other text such as the KJV Apocrypha,
for example). Where Charles included a critical apparatus (e.g., Fourth Ezra—see
screenshot below), it, too, is broken out as a separate volume.

As with every Libronix-compatible resource, all Bible references are
hotspots that open your preferred Bible version to the specified passage.
Abbreviations and annotation symbols are decoded via pop-ups that appear
when you hover the mouse over the abbreviation or symbol. Inter-textual
links are also hotspots that jump you to the resource referenced (e.g.,
clicking a footnote marker in The Assumption of Moses will open the
accompanying commentary to that point).

The electronic edition has been broken out into seven volumes, each of which
appears in My Library:

Apocrypha of the Old Testament: The actual text of the apocryphal
books chosen for this volume by R.H. Charles. This includes all prefatory
information and introductions to the books as well.

Apocrypha of the Old Testament (Apparatuses): Some (not all) books
have rather technical apparatuses. This resource has them when they're
available. Some are incredibly technical and detailed (Tobit is loaded w/Syriac,
Greek, and Hebrew variants), others are quite brief (e.g., 4Macc in
Pseudepigrapha). This resource can be set to scroll synchronously with the
other two Apocrypha-based volumes (and any Bible with Apocrypha in Libronix
DLS, e.g., NRSV, RSV, KJV Apocrypha, NAB, NJB, LXX, etc.)

Commentary on the Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Bottom-of-the-page
notes from Charles' edition.

Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament: The actual text of the
apocryphal books chosen for this volume by R.H. Charles. This includes all
prefatory information and introductions to the books as well.

Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Apparatuses): Some (not all)
books have rather technical apparatuses. This resource has them when they're
available.

Commentary on the Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament:
Bottom-of-the-page notes from Charles' edition.

Index to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament: An
index to both the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. It is in the last 30-40
pages of volume 2. All references are hotspots, and it is topically indexed.
So you can search this resource topically to find out what the Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha
have to say on a particular topic.